December 22, 2023 Show with Dr. Tony Costa on “No King But Christ”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson,

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with your own questions.

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Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living

on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this

22nd day of December, 2023, the last Friday before

Christmas.

And I am thrilled to have back on the program one of my dearest friends, whose

ministry I have the highest of regard for, and

he is truly an extraordinarily gifted and brilliant man

who also is one of those individuals whose brilliance

has not turned him into an egomaniac.

He is truly one of the most humble brothers I've ever heard, which is even demonstrated in

his debates with those whom he strongly disagrees with

on a number of issues.

But I'm speaking of none other than Dr. Tony Costa, who is an author, a debater, and

professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

And today we're going to be addressing the theme of a soon -to -be -published book by him,

his latest book, No King But Christ.

It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr. Tony Costa.

Well, thank you so much, Chris.

It's been a while, but it's always an honor and a privilege to be with you.

Well, why don't you tell our listeners about this book?

Love the title of the book.

Yes, it's a book that I've written about a year or so ago, about a year.

It's been in the works about a year.

And I wrote the book in light of what has been happening in our world, in our

contemporary society, not just North America, but particularly in the West.

There has been a rapid decline and degeneration, not just in Western societies,

but also in the Western Church.

And so I felt convicted to write a book on the supremacy of

Christ, particularly in terms of his kingship, which is a central theme throughout Scripture.

And the subtitle of my book is The Collapse and Bankruptcy of Secular Worldviews.

And what I do in this book, Chris, is I present the kingship of God,

kingship of his Son, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the emergence

of secular worldviews that really, at their fundamental root level, are opposed

to the King, Christ Jesus.

They are worldviews that refuse to bend the knee to him.

And from there, I also work out the trajectory that these

worldviews have led us to, and that is the moral decline, the abandonment of objective truth,

objective moral values.

All of these things are rooted in the King, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so I talk about, of course, the emergence of Antichrist, and what

exactly Antichrist means, and how Antichrist opposes the true King.

It sets itself up as a pseudo -King, and it could appear in various forms.

Antichrist could be religious.

It could be a political movement.

It could be any ideology that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and

refuses to bow to him.

And so the point of the book is—the title itself, No King But Christ,

is a spin -off of the claim in John 19 when Pilate

presented Jesus to the crowds, and he said to them, what should I do with your

king?

And, of course, the religious leaders said, we have no king but Caesar, which was

really a statement of blasphemy, of a violation of the first commandment.

Their king was actually God himself, and, of course, the promised Messiah.

But there they chose an earthly king, an earthly

despot, instead of the rightful king, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so that tension has been running throughout history, and it will culminate, of course, in the

coming of the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, who will establish his eternal kingdom.

And then we shall hear the song of victory in Revelation 11, 15, that the

kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he

shall reign forever and ever.

Amen.

And just to reiterate, you obviously did insinuate this

already in your opening remarks, but there has been a

difference of opinion amongst brothers and sisters in Christ spanning

the theological spectrum about the identity of the Antichrist.

There are some who believe it is a specific individual in our future,

and there are some who believe it is a system, such as the

papacy, and there are other views as well.

And there are those who actually repeat what the Scriptures say, that there are

many Antichrists, even among you now, and that was written

two millennia ago.

So we even have differences of opinion amongst our millennialists

on this issue.

And it is interesting, folks, for those who believe it is a specific

future individual, the term Antichrist is nowhere found in the

Book of Revelation.

I just thought I'd throw that out there.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, sorry, are you finished, Chris?

Yes, I am, yes.

Are you finished yet?

Are you finished yet?

I just wasn't sure if you wanted to add something else.

No, no, no.

I totally agree with you.

I would say that, I mean, the term Antichrist, Antichristos in the Greek text, it only appears in the

letters of John, in 1 John and 2 John, and you are correct, it does not appear in the Book of Revelation,

even though we can, it is implicit that the beast and the false prophet and even the dragon, the

representation of Satan, they are Antichrist.

The word Antichrist, of course, has two meanings.

The word anti means to be against, but it also means to be in place of.

So Antichrist is anyone who is against Christ or anyone who claims to be in the place of Christ.

And so the Latin term for anti is the word vicaris, and when the Pope

claimed to be vicari, vicaris Christi or vicari Christos, the problem with that, of

course, is that when the Reformers got wind of that, they realized that the word vicaris is the Latin

equivalent of the Greek word anti, and so they put two and two together.

Vicaris Christi means to be in the place of Christ.

So the Pope claims to be in the place of Christ as the successor of Peter, and

as the visible head of the church, he claims to be in the place of Christ, the representative of Christ on the earth.

And therefore, you can now see why the Reformers denounced the papacy as Antichrist by their own admission.

Yeah, in all of the major Reformed confessions, they originally identified

the Pope as the Antichrist.

Most today, not all, but most today, while not diminishing the

severity of their opposition to the papacy, just have a different understanding eschatologically

about that.

Yes, yes.

And so in 1 John 2 .18, John the Apostle says, Dear children, this is the last hour.

So he's already telling them we're in the last days.

The last hour did not begin when Nelson Darby

started dispensationalism, and it definitely did not begin with the publication of the late

great planet Earth.

So the last days began in the first century, and John goes on to say, and as you've heard that

the Antichrist is coming, even now many Antichrists have come.

This is how we know it is the last hour.

So how do we know it's the last hour?

It's the emergence of Antichrists, plural.

And John points out that there is the Antichrist that is coming, and this is what gives rise to this view of

a final figure that will appear.

But even now there are many Antichrists.

And so Islam is an Antichrist.

Roman Catholicism is an Antichrist.

The cults are Antichrist.

Any political view that opposes God's supremacy is Antichrist.

Many political parties are Antichrist.

So this is part of what we call the now and the not yet.

There is now many Antichrists, but there is one who is to come, the last one that will

appear.

And so as you've said, Chris, there are various views on this, various interpretations,

but Antichrist is anyone, anything that opposes itself,

positions itself against the true king, and it will continue until the last day.

Just as the beast, there have been many beasts that have appeared in world history.

Nazi Germany was one of them.

Communism was one of them.

Islam is another one.

The book Revelation talks about the beast that comes out of the abyss, and then he's defeated, and then

he returns back to the abyss.

And so there's this continuous progression that these various Antichrists, these various

beasts arise, and then they decline, and then they come back again.

And the last one will be destroyed when the Lord Jesus Christ appears.

And do you believe—not to belabor this issue, because it's not the primary theme

that we're discussing—but do you believe that in order for a

label such as Antichrist to be biblically accurate, a part of the

ideology of the one being labeled as such needs to be the denial that Christ came in the flesh,

as the Scriptures say is a mark of an Antichrist?

Yes, that is definitely one of them that is mentioned.

But is it required?

Can we identify?

Not necessarily.

No, it's not necessarily required.

In the immediate context of 1 John, he's got the Gnostics in mind who denied that Jesus was a real human being,

but it is not an

immediate requirement.

I mean, Mormons believe that Jesus came in the flesh, but what they deny is that God came in

the flesh.

And so the sign of Antichrist is the denial that Christ is God

incarnate.

But they do believe that God the Father came in the flesh.

Yeah, well, they believe that, but they don't believe—Mormons don't believe—that Jesus Christ is

uniquely God, that is, one with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

They believe they're separate gods.

And so Mormonism denies monotheism, denies there's only one true ever -living God, and the Trinity

is defined by Mormonism as three separate gods.

Right.

And the Holy Ghost, by the way, has never taken on flesh.

He's a personage of spirit.

So in Mormon theology, the strange thing is the Holy Ghost, they differentiate the Holy Ghost from the Holy Spirit, which is another

bizarre idea.

The only God in Mormonism that never took on flesh is the Holy Ghost.

Now, going directly to the theme, not that this is

going to be a focal point of your discussion either, but I think it's probably good to

get out of the way because it is a prominent, prevalent view,

especially because of the dominance of dispensationalism amongst evangelicals

in various levels of intensity.

And I must give the caveat right away that I have many,

not only friends who are dispensationalists, but even heroes,

including John MacArthur and others.

So I don't want to sound as if I'm disparaging and broad -brushing

dispensationalists and counting them as heretics or something like that.

But the title of your book, the primary title, No King But

Christ, there is a view, as you know, amongst dispensationalists that

although Jesus Christ has always been and always will be

deity, he always was and always will be the second person of the Trinity, they do not

believe, at least many of them don't, if not most, do not believe that

Jesus Christ is currently the Lord and King, that that is going to be,

that title and role is going to be granted to him during the millennium, the physical millennium on earth,

which in their eschatological scheme comes about after the secret rapture and the Great

Tribulation.

But if you could comment on that and why is that a dangerous understanding of things?

Yes, and I would register my opposition to that

view as well.

So you're correct that dispensationalists would argue that

Jesus came as prophet.

He's now currently interceding for the saints of God as the Great High Priest, but that he does not

take his kingly rule or his kingly position until the millennium,

until he rules, and then, of course, rules in the new heaven and the new earth.

The problem with that view, of course, is that you really have to twist

Scripture to arrive at that point.

I don't think Scripture teaches that.

The Lord Jesus Christ is prophet, priest, king even now, and we know that

because when we look at the ascension of Christ, a lot of Christians are not aware of the

fact that the ascension of Christ was his coronation.

And so when Christ ascended into heaven, the language of ascension is

what happens when kings or queens take the throne.

They ascend the throne, and it was at that point that Psalm 110 .1 was fulfilled, sit at

my right hand.

The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.

And so to sit at the right hand of the Father is to sit on the throne, which implies coronation.

And also the fact that 1 Corinthians 15 tells us that he must

reign until he places all his enemies under his feet as his footstool.

And so Christ is reigning spiritually through his church.

He is the true sovereign.

Yes, he is also the priest -king because in Psalm 110 .1, the same one who sits at the right hand of Yahweh,

it says, you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

And so we have a priest -king in the heavens, that is the Lord Jesus, and

he is reigning over his church.

And one day, that reign will become physically manifested

when Christ returns personally and bodily.

And so when we think of what is commonly called the Lord's Prayer, the Our

Father, as it's sometimes called, it's actually the disciples' prayer, not the Lord's Prayer,

because the Lord Jesus could never have said, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

He could never have said that because he was sinless.

But in that prayer— He could never have said that in prayer, but he did say it when he was teaching his disciples to pray.

Correct, yeah, and he qualified it by saying, this is how you should pray.

He didn't say, this is how we should pray.

Right, right.

And so that's why it's aptly called—it's better called the disciples' prayer, but because the Lord taught it, it's called the Lord's Prayer.

But in that prayer, we do say, you know, thy kingdom come and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And so because he is the priest -king, just like Melchizedek—Melchizedek was both a priest and a

king—the Messiah is a priest and a king now.

You cannot divorce his kingship from his priesthood.

He's both of those at the same time.

And so, just as the prophet said that the Messiah would not just be king, but he would also be priest as well.

Amen.

Now, to make it even more a stark contrast from what you're setting forth

today, dispensationalists and others believe

that not only is Jesus not right now Lord and king, but Satan

is—not over heaven, of course, but he is the ruler of this world.

And, in fact, I've recently heard a major dispensationalist, when he was

asked if he believed Jesus was Lord, he said, I certainly hope not, because

he's referring to the fact that there is all kinds of satanic,

nightmarish things occurring in increasing levels all

over the globe, which leaves many folks with some

kind of respect for the Scriptures, even if they're not Christians, watching their

TVs and looking at the internet in utter astonishment and horror

about what's going on.

So, the argument would be, man, if Jesus is Lord, he's really doing a horrible job,

and forgive me, folks, if that sounded blasphemous, and perhaps it is.

But I am not saying that because I believe it myself.

Yeah, I mean, they're confusing the now and the not yet.

The now is that Christ is ruling through his church, but he is not

fully—the kingdom of God has not taken its fullest physical manifestation yet, and that happens

at the return of Christ.

And so, the Lord is king.

I mean, the Scriptures, the Psalms, over and over and over and over again say Yahweh is king, and he rules.

And even Abed Kenazer had to learn the hard way when he was driven to insanity where he was eating

grass like an ox on all fours.

He came to his senses and realized that the most high rules over the kingdoms of the world, and that

he does as he pleases in the heavens, and no one has a right to say to him, what doest thou?

And so, the idea here is that Christ is Lord.

He is on the throne.

And this usually comes out of a very weak view of the sovereignty of God.

Most dispensationalists are Arminian.

And so, when we understand the sovereignty of God, that Satan cannot act without God's permission, that Satan cannot even

blink without God's permission, Satan only does what he does because he's allowed to.

He's not running amok out there, unbridled, doing whatever he willingly pleases.

He is still, for lack of a better word, he is still God's devil.

He is the servant of the Almighty.

Even though he's opposed to the Almighty, he only does what he's allowed to do, and no further.

And so, this ideology that, oh, I hope Jesus is not Lord because it looks pretty bad out there,

that is born out of a very weak view of the sovereignty of God.

Now, how do you exegete 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verses 3 and 4?

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the

God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they will not see the light

of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

They will say that that is proof that Satan is actually the God of this world.

Yeah, well, it's interesting.

There are other views on 2 Corinthians 4, and there's one particular view

by a Reformed scholar whose name escapes me at the moment, but he wrote an article, actually, he published an

article where he actually argues that 2 Corinthians 4, for the God of this age is actually a reference to God himself,

that it is actually the true God who is blinding the hearts of those who are not elect.

So that's one view.

The majority view, the traditional view, is that Satan is spoken of as the God of this age

because he's also, the Lord Jesus calls him the prince of this world or the ruler, the Greek word is archon,

means ruler.

And so Satan who rules the world, the word cosmos has a myriad of

meanings, the world system is ruled by Satan, and he's called the God of this age or the God of this world

because the world serves him, the world seeks after him, they are his children, and so they worship him.

But that, again, does not overrule the sovereignty of God because

it is very clear that in Matthew 11 and Luke 10,

the Lord Jesus at one point praises the Father and says,

he says to the Father, thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise,

but you have revealed them unto babes.

And so there we see Jesus actually thanking the Father that he's hidden

the message of the gospel to the rich, but that he's divulged and revealed that to the poor.

So there is a sense in which God can withhold, God can harden the hearts of men as he did with Pharaoh,

but Satan can also do that by the divine permission of God.

So as I said, 2 Corinthians 4 .4, the majority of you has been that that's a reference to Satan,

but there are some who would argue that the God of this age is actually a reference to God himself.

Yes, we even have Thomas, when he was finally convinced that Jesus did rise from the dead,

proclaiming my Lord and my God.

Yes.

And of course, people have Satan as their Lord.

That doesn't mean he is the Lord.

Correct.

Correct.

So Galatians 4 .8, you know, Paul says to the Galatians, he says that

when you did not know God, he says you did worship those things which by

nature are not God's.

So Galatians 4 .8 points out that by nature, there are things

that are worshiped that are not God.

They're called God, they're gods because they are worshiped.

No, Paul talks about 1 Corinthians 8 .5 that to the pagan, the Greco -Roman pagans, there are many lords and many gods.

But in 1 Corinthians 8 .6, he says, but to us, there's but one God, the Father and one Lord Jesus Christ.

And there he is actually, he's giving us the Christian version of the Shema, the one God, the one Lord.

But it's interesting, Chris, that in Galatians 4 .8, Paul clearly points out that when the Galatians were

pagans away from Christ, they worship that which by nature are not God's.

And so by nature, there's only one true God, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, infinite,

all -powerful, all -knowing, and that is the one God, the triune God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

Yes.

And to further add to the fact that some of the confusion lies in

where those who are the enemies of Christ have Satan as their Lord, Philippians 3

.19 also describes such people whose end is destruction,

whose God is their belly.

So obviously, we're not going to make a theological doctrine that the

stomachs of Christ's enemies are the Lord of this earth or the God of

this earth.

That's right.

So anything you worship, anything you worship becomes your God, whether it's money, status, it's sex,

it's alcoholism, prestige, anything that you place

in front of God becomes your God.

It's an idol because it's not truly God by nature, but it becomes your God.

So what you serve becomes your God.

And therefore, these gods are really, at the end of the day, they're illusions.

They're not real.

And before we go to the commercial break, I just thought I'd throw out an interesting piece of trivia.

One of our founding fathers, John Adams,

before the Revolutionary War was concluded and our liberties were purchased as a

nation.

A British soldier ordered John Adams and John Hancock and some other

patriots to disperse in the name of George, the sovereign king of England.

And John Adams replied to him, we recognize no sovereign but God and no king but Jesus.

What makes that statement even more fascinating is that it is widely believed that John Adams

was an atheist or at the very least an agnostic.

So it's kind of puzzling that he would make such a powerful proclamation there.

Yes.

But we have to go to our first commercial break, folks.

If you would like to join us with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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We're now back with Tony Costa.

We are talking about No King But Jesus.

And we do have David in Ada, Ohio, asking, how much error do you think

has come into this question about the Antichrist and about lordship of

our Lord Jesus Christ because of the dispensationalist teaching and the popularity of the Left Behind

series?

So specifically, do you think that that has been a major factor in

confusing Christians about who is the Lord of the earth?

Yes, I do think that Darby's dispensationalist views have caused

a lot of confusion.

And principally, the main factor being his view that there are two peoples of God, that

you've got unregenerate physical Jews that he would argue, dispensationalists argue are God's people.

And then you've got the church.

And so they separate Israel and the church as two separate peoples of God.

That's the major problem.

And Scripture, of course, does not recognize the two peoples of God idea.

God has always had one people, and the people of God are always in covenant with him.

Those who are outside of Christ, including Jews, that Paul says that they are enemies of the gospel

for the sake of the Gentiles, but they are still unregenerate.

They are not, if they are outside of Messiah, they are not the people of God.

You cannot be outside of Christ and still be in covenant with God.

So that's one of the problems.

The other problem, of course, is that in arguing that Jesus

is only functioning now as a priest for his people, and that his kingly role will not

happen until his second coming, that, of course, raises all types of problems.

The whole idea that Jesus can be your savior now, but he's not really your

king.

He's not really king at this point.

And that simply does not fit the biblical data that we have.

His ascension was his coronation.

And if you look at Psalm 24, which follows the 23rd Psalm, of course,

Psalm 22, you have the suffering of the Messiah, his crucifixion, Psalm 23.

You have the promise that even though he walks through the valley of the shadow of death, that he will be comforted.

He will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

So you do have a bit of a resurrection motif there.

And then in Psalm 24, it begins by claiming that the earth is the Lord's in the fullness

thereof, that Yahweh is the sovereign over the whole earth.

But then Psalm 24 ends with the words, lift up your heads, O you gates.

Let the king of glory come in.

Who is this king of glory?

The Lord, mighty in battle.

And so in Psalm 24, you have this beautiful ending where it says, open up the

gates so that the king of glory may come in.

Well, why would the king of glory be coming in unless he went out?

Well, obviously he left his throne above in the incarnation and in the

ascension, the king of glory returns.

And his sovereignty over the earth is affirmed in Matthew 28,

18.

Before the great commission, the Lord Jesus said, all authority is given to me in heaven and earth.

That is regal authority.

That is kingly authority.

And he is reclaiming heaven and earth to himself.

And so Genesis 1, 1 begins with, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

And here, the God -man, the Lord Jesus Christ is saying, all authority is given to me in

heaven and earth.

And so that is clearly regal.

That is royal language.

And so the fact that the Lord Jesus is reigning until he makes all his enemies his footstool

indicates that all his enemies have not yet been put under his feet.

The last one is death.

Death is the last enemy.

And so it's very sad that when dispensationalists read the Bible, it's always, well, is

this about me or is it about Israel?

And the idea that the Lord Jesus Christ is not really reigning as king right now is a frightful

idea because he is the sovereign and all things are under his jurisdiction.

He has placed all things under his feet.

And therefore, it robs Christ's regal and kingly

role and it diminishes him.

I think dispensationalism diminishes the Lord Jesus Christ.

And that, I think, is one of its weak points.

And it has produced many other errors.

The other problem, of course, is the rapture.

The idea that Christ is going to come invisibly, secretly, and he's going to snatch the church away.

And pilots are going to disappear from the cockpits and planes are going to be falling all over the world, accidents all over the major

highways as people are taken out of their driver's seats.

This idea is completely foreign, totally foreign to the church.

The reformers never talked about it.

They certainly would have talked about it if it was a revealed doctrine.

The church fathers are absolutely silent on this.

And of course, it has its origins with John Nelson Darby in Ireland.

So we know where it came from.

And unfortunately, it has become the face of American evangelicalism.

And unfortunately, it has caused a lot of confusion and really has

diminished the sovereign king, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And specifically, the left -behind

book and movie, Tim LaHaye, the late Tim LaHaye's work, the

listener was saying, how much of modern -day Christianity do you think has been

confused by that?

Yeah, I'd say a good portion of, I'll call it American

evangelicalism.

I think a good portion of American evangelicalism has been influenced by that, including, of course,

the word faith teachers.

The majority of them, if not all, are dispensationalists, Darby style.

But here in Canada, of course, we have many evangelical churches that still cling to

that, like the Pentecostals and some freewill Baptists.

And it has, unfortunately, when you think of Hal Lindsay as well, he had a profound

influence on American evangelicalism, and he pushed this idea in his books, like Late Great Planet

Earth, and Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth, and so forth.

So it has become almost de facto the face of what we can call American

evangelicalism.

And that was primarily due to the influence of C .I. Schofield, who wrote the Schofield Reference Bible, and he

was a disciple of John Nelson Darby.

So yeah, I would say a good portion of, let's call them North American Christians,

a good portion of them are influenced by this type of thinking.

And it's done a lot of, I think it's done a lot of harm.

But having said that, God in his sovereignty even uses

constantly very flawed men, because he wouldn't be using anybody if he didn't.

But Tim LaHaye, not Tim LaHaye, I'm sorry, Hal Lindsey's book, The Late Great

Planet Earth, I can't even tell you how many Reformed Christians began their

journey into Christianity through that book.

They later renounced Tim LaHaye's, I mean, I keep saying Tim LaHaye.

They later renounced Hal Lindsey's

teaching on this, but it was, God used it as a stepping stone.

Absolutely.

Well, we know, Chris, that God does use crooked sticks to make straight lines, and it's not the stick that draws

the line, it's the hand that holds it.

And so God continues to use crooked sticks to make straight lines.

And one other thing you probably should clarify, there are

occasions when those who are not dispensationalists, who are

not pre -mill, pre -trib, who are among those that

are all mill and post -mill, perhaps predominantly, they will dismiss

the concept of the rapture, but they are speaking in that dismissal of the secret

pre -tribulational rapture.

They're not denying what 1 Thessalonians teaches us in chapter four, verse 17.

After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up in the air with them in the clouds to meet the

Lord in the air.

That is something we firmly believe.

We are not hyper -preterists.

Right, right.

So I did a talk, and you know, Chris, because you were there one year with me, I did a talk at

the John Bunyan Conference in Franklin, Tennessee, and I did a lecture on the rapture, the secret rapture, which

our listeners can, if you go to YouTube and just punch in Tony Costa, a secret rapture, you could hear my

lecture there online.

And I thank you for mentioning that, Chris.

We're not against the word rapture, but what we are saying is that what we are

against is this idea of a pre -tribulational secret rapture that is then followed by another coming at

Armageddon or when the final coming of Christ at the end of time.

So the word rapture itself comes from, it comes from the Latin word that means to snatch away.

And of course, that will happen when the Lord returns.

First Thessalonians 4 .16, the Lord himself would descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trump of God,

and the dead in Christ shall rise first.

And then those of us who are alive unto the coming of the Lord shall be taken up and we shall meet them

in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

So yes, Christ will rapture up his saints.

He will raise the dead first.

Their bodies will be raised as their souls come with Christ to

merge again with their resurrected bodies.

The living will be changed in the twinkling of an eye, they shall be changed and they shall be

taken up and so shall we ever be with the Lord, with those who predeceased us.

So you're absolutely right, Chris.

The word rapture in and of itself is not wrong, but it's when does it happen?

It happens at the coming of the Lord.

In other words, it's simultaneous with the coming of the Lord.

It's not some separate event that occurs before the coming of the Lord.

So the dispensations actually have three comings of Christ.

They have the first coming to make atonement, and then there's the secret coming, the snatching up where the Lord

ascends to the atmosphere.

They get very technical.

It's almost like NATO.

He comes to the atmosphere and takes up the saints, and then he will come again at the end of time

to destroy Antichrist and establish his eternal kingdom.

And just to remind our dear friends and brothers and sisters who are dispensationalists who say

that we do not take the Bible literally, and they seem to

have exclusive rights to that claim.

The Gospel of John mentions four times that Jesus

will raise us up on the last day, and we believe that it means what it

says, the last day.

That will be the last day of earth as we know it.

There will be a new heaven and a new earth, but the very final consummation of

all things in this earth before those who are lost are damned

for eternity and those who are saved will be glorified and

a permitted entrance into heaven with Christ, that's going to happen on

the final day, not a thousand years before it, right?

Yeah, I mean, again, it all depends on your eschatology.

So, I mean, there is a view called class premillennialism or

historic premillennialism that was held by a number of the church fathers for

the first, about the first 300 years of the church's history.

But dispensational premillennialism is very different in that it

basically states that the millennium has a Jewish character to it.

They even believe there'll be a third temple built, excuse me, they believe that there will actually be a fourth

temple.

The third temple is built by Antichrist, according to the dispensationalists in Jerusalem, but there'll be a fourth temple, Ezekiel's

temple in Ezekiel 4 and 48, where they actually believe that there will be actual sacrifices,

literal sacrifices will be taking place during the millennium and that these sacrifices are

commemorative, they're memorials like the Lord's Supper.

So you get into some really strange territory there when you start talking about

reestablishing the sacrificial system, even though Hebrew says that has all been set aside by Christ's perfect

sacrifice.

But you are right, Chris, they would place the great white throne judgment as

something that occurs after the millennium, and then that's when the wicked are thrown into the lake of fire.

Well, we have to go to our final break, not our final break, I'm sorry.

We have to go to our midway break right now.

Is that the mid -tribulational view there?

Chris, the mid break?

And please be patient with us, folks, because the middle break, as always, is a little longer than the other breaks in the show, because

Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show

because the FCC requires of them to localize this show geographically to Lake City,

Florida, and they do so with their own public service announcements.

Those only air on 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida.

We simultaneously are globally heard commercials, so please use this time wisely.

Write down as much of the contact information provided by our advertisers as you can so that you can more frequently and successfully

reply to our advertisers, keeping in mind that we depend on our advertisers to exist.

And also send in your questions to Tony Costa, to chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

We'll be right back.

Please do not go away.

Have you noticed the gap that exists between the Sunday morning sermon and the Sunday school classroom or the small

group study?

So often we experience great preaching from the pulpit, but when it comes time to study God's word in those

smaller settings, well, let's be honest, it leaves a lot to be desired.

It seems like it is nearly impossible to find good curriculum out there today that is true to the word of God and is

built upon sound doctrine, much less it's hard to find curriculum that will actually teach people how to

study the Bible.

Hi there, my name is Jordan Too and I am the executive director of the Baptist Publishing House.

Our ministry is dedicated to providing local churches with sound Bible study resources.

Our quarterly curriculum is titled The Baptist Expositor.

And for good reason, we are Baptist and we exegete the scriptures.

If you want to have a curriculum that teaches your people how to study the word of God, I invite you go to our website,

download a free study, baptistpublishinghouse .com.

May God bless you.

It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners.

From all over the world.

Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show

he really loves hearing interviewed, Dr. Joe Moorcraft.

I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland.

Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe

Moorcraft.

If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron radio, Dr. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming,

Georgia are largely to thank since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards and Dr. Joe

Moorcraft is the author of an eight volume commentary on the larger catechism.

Heritage is a member of the Hanover Presbytery built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,

Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone and tracing its roots and heritage back to the great Protestant

reformation of the 16th century.

Heritage maintains and follows the biblical truth and principles proclaimed by the reformers, scripture alone,

grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, and God's glory alone.

Their primary goal is the worship of the triune God that continues in eternity.

For more details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch

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-7831.

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If you visit, tell them Joe O 'Reilly, Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener and a toy in County Kildare, Ireland

sent you.

Hi, this is John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona.

Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnson and the Iron Sharpens Iron podcast.

I consider Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity.

He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big penetrating questions while always defending the key

doctrines of the Christian faith.

I've always been happy to point people to this podcast knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the internet

where folk won't be led astray.

I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide.

This is a day of great spiritual compromise and yet God has raised Chris up for just such a time

and knowing this, it's up to us as members of the body of Christ to stand with such a ministry in prayer

and in finances.

I'm pleased to do so and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting Iron

Sharpens Iron financially.

Would you consider sending either a one -time gift or even becoming a regular monthly partner with this ministry?

I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would.

All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com where you can click support.

That's ironsharpensironradio .com.

I'm Dr. Tony Costa, professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love, Hope

Reformed Baptist Church in Corham, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jansen and Christopher

McDowell.

It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God like the dear saints at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in

Corham who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the

unfathomable riches of Christ in his holy word and to enthusiastically proclaim Christ

Jesus the King and his doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island and beyond.

I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing

of being showered by their love as I have.

For more information on Hope Reformed Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.

That's hopereformedli .net or

call 631 -696 -5711.

That's 631 -696 -5711.

Tell the folks at Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa

on Iron Sharpens Iron.

Every day at thousands of community centers, high schools, middle schools, juvenile institutions,

coffee shops and local hangouts, Long Island Youth for Christ, staff and volunteers meet with young people

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We are rural and urban and we are always about the message of Jesus.

Our mission is to have a noticeable spiritual impact on Long Island, New York by engaging young people in the lifelong

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Long Island Youth for Christ has been a stalwart bedrock ministry since 1959.

We have a world -class staff and a proven track record of bringing consistent love and encouragement to youths in

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Help honor our history by becoming a part of our future.

Volunteer, donate, pray or all of the above.

For details, call Long Island Youth for Christ at 631 -385

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That's 631 -385 -8333 or visit

liyfc .org.

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James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know I have a great love for getting Bibles and other

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If you love Iron Sharpens Iron Radio one of the best ways you can help keep the show on the air is

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One such faithful advertiser who really believes in what Chris Arnton is doing is

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He who never quotes will never be quoted.

He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves he has no brains of his own.

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You're not only going to be doing solid -ground -books .com a favor by buying books from them, and you're not only going to be doing

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Before I return to Dr. Tony Costa and our conversation on No King But Christ, I have a few

important announcements to make.

If you love this show and you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves, I'm urging you, please go to ironsharpensironradio

.com, click support, then click click to donate now.

You could donate instantly with a debit or credit card in that fashion.

If you prefer snail mail, mailing in a physical check to a physical address, the old -fashioned way from your post office,

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If you want to advertise with us, as long as whatever it is you want to promote is compatible with what I believe, I would love to

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Day giving to your own local church where you're a member.

Please don't do that.

In other words, please don't give your own church less money than you normally give your church in order to bless

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Never do that.

And if you're struggling to survive and make ends meet, wait until you're back on your feet and more financially stable before you

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The Bible's very clear.

We're primarily to use our finances to support our church and our family and supporting Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is not a command

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But if you love this show, you don't want it to go off the air and you are blessed financially above and beyond your ability to provide

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Now, last but not least, if you're not a member of a biblically faithful church, no matter where in the world you

live, I have extensive lists spanning the globe of biblically faithful churches, and I've

helped many people in our audience all over the planet Earth find churches, sometimes even within just a couple of

minutes from where they live, and that may be you too if you're without a church home.

Send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line.

That's also the email address where you could send in a question for Dr. Tony Costa,

chrisarnson at gmail .com.

And Dr. Costa, if you could now direct us to some of the primary reasons

that you want to focus on no king but Christ in this yet

-to -be -published book of yours.

Yeah, the primary reason, of course, is the supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ,

not just over our lives, but over, as the Bible says, that he

is Lord of heaven and earth.

And one of the things that I bring out in my book is I map the

theme of God's kingship starting with Genesis.

A lot of folks aren't aware of the fact that in Genesis 1, we see God's kingship clearly.

He is sovereign over creation.

He orders the light to come into existence.

He separates the light from the darkness.

He creates human beings in his own image.

And even that language of image, image of God, was the terminology that was used

in the ancient Near East to refer to the kings.

The kings were called the image of the God.

And when God creates the first human pair, he creates them to rule, to have

dominion.

That is regal language, to have dominion over the earth and to subdue it.

That's the language of kingship.

And he created Adam to be a king.

He also created him to be a prophet.

He spoke the words of God to his wife, Eve.

He was also a priest.

He and his wife were priests.

They could approach God.

And he was also, again, we saw that they're kings.

They have dominion.

They approach God.

They speak on behalf of God.

And so the first man, Adam, becomes a type of the last Adam.

The first man, Adam, was the image of God.

He was a prophet, priest, king.

He's also son of God.

Luke 3 .38 refers to Adam as the son of God.

But yet the last Adam is the true prophet.

He is the true king.

He is the true priest.

He is the image of the invisible God.

And he is the one and only, only begotten son of God by nature.

And so the idea of kingship starts in Genesis.

It works its way out through the Old Testament.

Noah is also spoken of in the same terminology.

He is the new Adam who begins a new life, a new generation after the flood.

And then that language is also used of the nation of Israel collectively.

Israel is a kingdom of priests.

They are to speak on behalf of God to the Gentile nations.

Israel is the son of God, Exodus 4 .22.

Israel is my son.

He tells Pharaoh, let my son go that he may come and worship me.

And then with the establishment of the divinic dynasty, the divinic monarchy, King David

is called the prophet in the book of Acts.

He spoke, he was inspired to write the Psalms.

He was also obviously a king, but he was also a priest.

We're told that David and his sons would offer up sacrifice.

And so there we see a beautiful picture of the Messiah as the priest king.

David is also the son of God.

He will be a son to me and I will be a father to him.

And I will make his house an everlasting house.

And that a son of David would come from his loins and he will sit on the throne of David forever.

And he will execute justice.

So all of that maps out until we come to the Messiah Jesus who is the promised fulfillment of all

of those things.

And what I also do, Chris, is I mentioned the fact that without the king, there is no

moral order.

You know, in the book of Judges, we have these accounts of these, of a time period in Israel's

history where the two refrains in the book of Judges is every man did what was right in his own eyes.

And the reason for this, it says, is because there was no king in Israel.

And it's interesting how in the book of Judges, the lack of morality and order in society is based on the fact

that there was no king.

And then when we come to the end of the book of Judges, it reminds us once again that this was a time when

everyone did what was right.

And then in the next book of Judges, it's the small book of Ruth.

What do we find in the book of Ruth?

Well, the last word in the book of Ruth is the name David.

Ruth is the matriarchal ancestor of David and of the Lord Jesus.

Her name appears in Matthew 1, 5 in the genealogy of Jesus.

And right after the book of Ruth, what do we have?

We have the first book of Samuel.

And what is first Samuel about?

First Samuel is about the emergence of the monarchy.

The terrible monarchy of Saul, the people's choice came to a miserable end.

But God chose a man after his own heart.

He chose David.

The word David in Hebrew means beloved.

And so we see God choosing David.

And so we need the king, Chris.

You know, I understand the United States had began with a revolution against the crown.

And of course, human kings are subject to corruption and so forth.

But we need to understand that God's ideal government is not a democracy.

It's not a republic.

It's not socialism.

It's not communism.

God's ideal government is what I call in my book, theocratic monarchy.

It is God ruling through his appointed king, his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so Psalm 2 is the picture of how it's all going to end.

Psalm 2 tells us that the kings of the earth and the peoples have imagined a vain thing.

They've set themselves up against Yahweh and against his anointed, his king.

And then we're told that God has appointed his king on his holy hill, that he's declared the king to be his son,

and that he's promised his son in verse 10 to 12, he says of Psalm 2, ask of me

and I will give you the nations as your inheritance.

You shall rule them with a rod of iron and dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel.

So here we have the king, Jesus, being promised by the father that his

inheritance is the nations.

And the fact that you and I, Chris, and so many around the world today, people of every diverse nation

and tongue and tribe are now members of the body of that king is a fulfillment of Psalm 2,

that the nations are Christ's rightful inheritance.

He has the crown rights over his elect, and he has the crown rights over the earth, which one day he

will take over and his reign will be from sea to sea.

Amen.

We have another listener with a question.

Vladimir in Cornelius, Oregon, or Oregon.

I think that's the way the Oregonians say it, Oregon.

But, and I could be wrong about that.

He says, what's interesting to me is that dispensationalists very

often speak as our current day and the days that await us in our

future are the most hellish and nightmarish and satanic that the planet has ever

experienced.

They seem to forget the fact that at one time Christians were fed to lions, and

that Nero and others used Christians as human torches.

Yes, that's a good point.

I think that the only way that we could say today is worse

is because there's more people on the planet, and you have numerically a lot more

anti -Christian ideology reigning in

many, most parts of the world, but also the number of Christians, or should I say, let me back up,

professing Christians who are exalting the

ideology of Satan, even though if they would never say that.

Would you agree, disagree with what I just said?

And of course, let's not forget about the writer of the question too.

Yeah, yeah, I would say that.

I mean, I would agree there's definitely a numerical increase, but dispensationalists talk about the great

tribulation as it has not yet occurred.

And so their interpretation of the book of Revelation is very interesting.

They will tell you that in Revelation 4, the church has taken up.

So when John is told, come up here and I will show you what's going to happen, Darby interpreted that as the church is going to be

raptured up.

And then they say, well, the word church doesn't appear in Revelation 4 to 22, which I think is a silly argument.

But the whole point there is that to the dispensationalist, the great tribulation has not yet come because the man

of sin has not yet appeared and built the third temple in Jerusalem.

And I think the problem with that is that it really is an insult to the history of the martyrs.

I think it's an insult to even our brothers and sisters today who suffer in North Korea,

who are imprisoned, even those in China, for example.

When I talked to some of these brothers when I was overseas doing some work in China, and we would talk about the great

tribulation, they would say, what do you mean the great tribulation?

We are in the great tribulation.

We're suffering right now.

And so I think that from a Western perspective, you know, we're doing pretty good compared

to a lot of our brothers and sisters around the world.

And I think that when we think about the Holocaust, and we think about Stalin and how he exterminated

over 6 million Ukrainians, and when we think about Mao's trampling down

of the peasants in China during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, these were times of

immense, immense suffering.

And I think that when they talk about the great tribulation as starting with the

appearance of the man of sin, and then there's going to be the seven -year period, you know, it's quite interesting, Chris,

when you think about it.

If the rapture takes place and then the tribulation starts, you can actually calculate the coming of the Lord.

You just have to add seven years to that time period.

And in fact, you've just refuted Christ who said of that day and hour, no man knows.

But you can actually calculate it because the rapture occurs, and then you got the seven -year tribulation period,

which means that at the end of the seventh year, Christ returns.

You mean if you are logically consistent as a dispensationalist.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

So, I mean, again, it all depends on what we mean by the great tribulation and what that does that

refer to.

And I think the people of God have experienced severe tribulation throughout history.

I don't think it's personally, I don't think it's referring to this time period in the future that

it's going to be the worst time ever.

I think that when we talk about the seven years in the book of Revelation, Jesus

himself never says the tribulation is a seven -year period.

They get that from the book of Revelation with the 42 months and the 42 months.

But the number seven usually is a number of completion.

And so it can refer to complete persecution against the people of God, severe

persecution against the people of God.

So I've never been attracted to this view that the worst is yet to come.

I think it's worse.

I think it is going to get worse.

I'm not a post -millennial advocate.

But I do think that as we reach the precipice of Christ's

second coming, I do think that things will get worse, not better.

Okay, thank you, Vladimir.

And by the way, I want to remind our listeners, those who have written in and those who have yet to

write in, first -time questioners always receive a free New American Standard Bible.

So if you are a first -time questioner, let me know.

I will take your word for it.

And I will have Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com, ship out to you a

brand new New American Standard Bible, compliments of the publishers of the NASB, and also

compliments of cvbbs .com.

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service will be shipping it at no charge to you or to us.

By the way, I owe a big, big, big debt of thanks to our

friends, the publishers of the New American Standard Bible,

NASBible .com, for renewing their advertising contract today.

And that brought music to my ears and a lot of

joy and peace to my heart, because Iron Trip and Zion Radio is facing some scary times

financially again.

So I thank God for this great news from NASBible .com.

I ask of you to pray, folks, for some other major sponsors of this program

who are up for renewal with their contracts, who have not yet given me their

final decisions.

So I appreciate your prayers about that.

And we have CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York.

And CJ says, How much of a big

difference is this making, these differences of opinion, over

the dispensationalist and non -dispensationalist disagreements?

Does it really have a major effect on how Christians live and also

the gospel itself?

Yeah, I would say that.

I think it's sad when Christians divide over issues pertaining

to, for example, whether you're pre -trib or mid -trib or post

-trib.

I mean, to me, it's pure tribulation.

But when you consider the fact that Christians can't agree to disagree agreeably

on some of these issues, and there are people who take these eschatological views

and make them into fundamental doctrines of the faith.

They, what I call, they major in the minors, but then they minor in the majors.

They minor on the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the gospel, and then they major on minor issues.

And I think that at the end of the day, within the Christian church, we need to

understand that there will be differences of opinion about this.

There's differences of opinion concerning the beginning.

There's debates about Genesis, whether you're talking literal six -day creation, whether it's progressive creation, whether

it's a young earth, old earth, intelligent design.

There are Christians who will continue to argue these points.

And they always seem to be in the beginning or the end points.

The beginning or dealing with the eschatology, the time of Christ's return, what's

going to happen?

Are we going to win the day?

Will the world become Christian?

Will we come under the moral law of God and have a theonomic state?

I would say that it doesn't really make a big difference, but what it can do is it

can influence our view of the gospel in terms of outreach, because

in terms of outreach, we need to understand that our major job is to

preach Christ and preach Christ crucified.

Our major job is to preach the gospel.

It's not to war with each other about the end times.

It's to preach the gospel.

Christ is coming.

We can all agree on that, whether he comes before the tribulation, after the tribulation, in the middle of the

tribulation, or there's going to be a secret rapture, whether we live or die, we are the lords, as we read in

Romans 14.

And the other thing as well is each view, whether you're premill or amill

or postmill, at the end, we all agree that Christ will have the victory.

We all agree that Christ will be king over all the earth.

And so I think we just need to be careful.

We need to cut some slack to those that we may disagree with on these issues.

But we must put the gospel first and foremost.

The preaching of the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, to all who believe, to the Jew first and then

to the Greek, to the Gentiles.

And that's where my focus lies.

It lies primarily on the gospel and on the salvation of lost souls.

Well, by the way, thank you, C .J.

And by the way, I was wondering, C .J., if you saw or were anywhere near that brawl, that

street brawl that just took place recently in Lindenhurst, Long Island, on Sunrise Highway, where people were,

a number of people, at least half a dozen, were hitting each other with very large wooden poles or

sticks or boards or something.

I just saw that on the news yesterday.

And I lived there for 10 years in Lindenhurst.

But anyway, one of the areas where it's, I think,

an area worthy of waving a battle flag, that is involved

in the divide between the dispensationalist and the non

-dispensationalist, is the area, now,

I'm not broad -brushing, because dispensationalists do not all believe this.

And one key example is John MacArthur, who wrote an extraordinary

book called The Gospel According to Jesus, defending the biblical

concept that repentance is absolutely necessary for salvation.

But there is something that is brought up by one of our listeners who already sent in

a question.

He sent in a second question that I was not necessarily going to read, but

then when I saw how it really connects to your theme of no king but Christ,

I thought I'd read it.

Let's see.

How do you respond to the carnal Christian idea that they are saved because of a prayer inviting

Jesus into their heart but have no change in their sinful lifestyle?

That is a heresy worth publicly condemning very vociferously, in my opinion.

And it also is connected with your theme, because rooted and

inseparably connected with this is the claim that sinners

coming to Christ for salvation do not need to acknowledge Him as their Lord.

So, therefore, what's your opinion on this?

Yeah, I think the word carnal Christian is an oxymoron.

It's like talking about a married bachelor or a square circle.

They're an oxymoron.

They don't mix.

It's nonsensical.

There is no such thing as a carnal Christian, because we're not supposed to walk according to the flesh but by the Holy Spirit.

And you cannot be in the flesh and in the Spirit at the same time, because these are contrary, Paul

says.

You are a new creation.

The old things are past, the new become.

So old things have become new.

So a carnal Christian is an oxymoronic statement.

There is no such thing in the Bible as a carnal Christian.

The second one, of course, is the lordship salvation issue, the lordship salvation debate, where

they're basically saying, well, you know, you come to faith in Jesus, you say this secret prayer or this

altar call, which, by the way, the altar call was created by Charles Finney, by the way.

He's the father of the altar call and had many heretical views.

The idea that you can come to Jesus as your Savior but not necessarily your Lord

flies in the face of Romans 10 .9, which, interestingly enough, is the passage that most of these guys quote,

that if you shall confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be

saved.

And whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

So it's very clear from Romans 10 .9 to 13 that lordship salvation is part and parcel

of redemption.

You cannot have Christ as Savior and not as Lord.

And again, that term Lord, Chris, kurios in Greek, the word Lord

is a divine title as well, which kings are also lords.

And so the Lord Jesus is not just king, he's also lord.

He's king of kings and lord of lords.

So, number one, carnal Christian is unbiblical.

It is definitely a hill to die on, Chris.

I would definitely agree with you on that.

And also lordship, the lordship of Christ is paramount.

So you cannot have Christ as Savior and not as Lord because

his identity as Savior is connected to who he is, which is king and

lord.

Excellent.

And thanks again, Dave in Ada, Ohio, for submitting that

second question.

Let's see here.

We have someone who has a name that I absolutely love.

And I just had it in front of me.

Okay.

Liberty in Darling, Mississippi.

And there's only one other person that I've ever heard with that name, and he was the drummer for Billy Joel,

Liberty DeVito, also a professing Christian, by the way.

And Liberty wants to know, if you are a member of

a church that espouses a view on the kingship of Christ other than

yours, would that be reason enough for a person, in your opinion, to leave that church and

find another?

Well, only if that view is unbiblical.

It depends what you mean by their view of the.

Kingship of Christ.

It has to be—.

Well, he was saying it's different than one you're espousing today.

Right.

Well, the only one that I would.

Think that would be different would be a dispensational view, that Christ is not ruling as king right now, that Christ rules as

king during the millennium.

And so what I would say is that dispensationalists believe that Jesus is

king, but he's like king and waiting right now.

I would not necessarily break fellowship over that.

I think the brother or sister who holds that view would be in error,

but I don't think that that error would be such that that person

would have to be excommunicated or that we would have to part ways or that we'd have to leave another church.

I think the way forward here is dialogue, is continued conversation with that brother or sister,

talking to them.

You know, Hebrews 6 talks about how we should move beyond elementary things, move beyond these elementary

things into the meat of God's Word.

And some of elementary things that Hebrews 6 mentions is baptisms and

judgment and things of that nature, and that we should move beyond the elementary

into the more heavier things of the Word of God.

So I would encourage dialogue in this way.

I would continue to talk to that brother or sister.

I've met many believers in my life who, you know, we had differences of opinion

on sovereignty and God's way of salvation, and many of them through dialogue with

me have been convinced of the Reformed view of the doctrines of grace and have moved sides.

They've jumped from the Arminian side to the Reformed side.

So I would encourage loving conversation with this person.

I'm always reminded, Chris, of Priscilla and Aquila in Acts chapter 18 when they heard Apollo, and

Apollo, we're told, was a mighty man in the Word of God, a mighty preacher in the Word of God.

But after he preached, Aquila and Priscilla approached this brother and spoke of him,

but then it says they explained the Word of God more clearly to him.

And Apollo, of course, listened to them and was so noteworthy that Paul even refers to him

in 1 Corinthians 1.

So continue dialogue with brothers and sisters in Christ, love them, dialogue, and

encourage.

Them to study further.

And just to throw out my two cents, I could, in good conscience,

especially if it was a sovereign grace -believing church, be a member of a dispensationalist

church as long as the—what's the word

I'm looking for ?—the eschatological understanding that dispensationalists have,

uniquely, was not the dominant thing presented from the pulpit.

There are many TV and radio evangelists.

It seems as though that's all they ever talk about.

I'd have to head for the hills if that was the situation.

And also, if they were intolerant of those who disagreed with

their dispensationalist understanding and labeled amillennialists and

postmillennialists and even historic premillennialist heretics and so on.

And there are those out there who do that.

In fact, I know personally some.

That's the only—because there are some fine shepherds of Christ's flock, or should

I say under -shepherds, who are dispensationalists.

And I could see myself being, very happily, being a member of their congregations.

So I just thought I'd throw that out there.

And we are going to our final commercial break.

And if you have a question for Dr. Tony Costa on No King But Christ, now would be the time to submit it because

we're rapidly running out of time.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

We'll be right back.

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And also, let me add to something I was saying before the break.

One final reason I would definitely leave a church that happened to be dispensationalist

is if they taught the carnal Christian heresy that we

were addressing before, if they were actually giving comfort to unrepentant sinners that they were

truly saved, then I could not tolerate that.

So I just thought I'd add that to my reasons for leaving a

dispensationalist church.

Also, let's see here.

We have a question for you, and I just had it in front of me.

Where is it?

Okay.

Sweeney in Celebration, Florida.

I know that you are a debater.

You have debated Roman Catholics and Muslims and others.

Have you ever debated somebody on the kingship of Christ who disagreed with your view?

No.

No, I have not.

Well, that's a good thing to arrange then.

Perhaps I'll do that.

Sure.

It'd be a very strange debate, but sure.

By the way, I want to let Sweeney and everybody else know that God used a debate that I arranged with Dr.

Costa and Roman Catholic apologist Robert St. Genes.

I believe it was on the Immaculate Conception.

Yes, and the perpetual sinlessness of Mary.

Right.

A friend of mine, an evangelical pastor here in the community not far from me,

Armenian pastor, not Reformed, he was on the brink of converting to Roman

Catholicism, and your debate, Dr. Costa's debate, is what stopped him in his

tracks with the most convincing evidence

why that would be a very eternally horrific turn of events if he had done that,

and he has never even thought twice about converting to Rome ever since.

So I want to thank you for doing such a fine job in that debate.

Thanks be to God.

Thanks be to God.

Well, I'd like you now to have the floor uninterrupted for a few minutes to really summarize what

you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

Yeah, I want our listeners who are in Christ to understand that when we use the word Christ

itself, the word Christos, Mashiach, Messiah, and we're in the Christmas season, of course,

where we celebrate the birth of the King, we need to understand that the word Christ, the Anointed One, is

a kingly title, because in the Old Testament, the three offices that were anointed with oil

was that of the King, the priest, and the prophet,

and we need to recapture the ultimate authority of Christ as indicated in

his role as Christ the King, the Lord, and what that means is that he is our

sovereign.

And, of course, to our American hearers, that might sound a little strange because the United States is Republican.

It started its origins by rejecting the monarchy of England.

Canada, of course, is part of the Commonwealth, and so we recognize the British

monarch as King of Canada as well, but we need to understand that

the King that we worship, the Lord Jesus Christ, is a righteous King.

He is the perfect King.

He is the ruler of the kings of the earth.

He is the King above all, all authority, and when we claim to be followers of the Lord

Jesus Christ, we are servants in the army of our King, and

he must have first place in him.

Paul says in Colossians 118 that in all things, he must have the primacy, the preeminence, the

supremacy, and without our King, we have no purpose.

There is no order in society.

There is no objective meaning or morality, and so we need to

capture that idea of the kingship of Christ.

For those of you who are interested in getting my book, which, God willing, will be out sometime

early in the new year, hopefully January, end of January, or February, early February.

We're not sure around there.

I would encourage you to subscribe to my YouTube channel.

It's Toronto Apologetics.

Just type on Tony Costa, Toronto Apologetics.

I'll be putting some videos up just letting you know when that book is going to be officially out,

so I would encourage you to do that.

If you're interested in learning more about apologetics, I'm teaching a course actually on heresies of the

church in January at Toronto Baptist Seminary, and you can

join us online.

We now have online access to the classes, so if you're interested in taking that

course with me, it's going to be Monday nights beginning on January the 15th, 2024.

If you're interested in registering, please go to tbs .edu, tbs

.edu.

You can send an email and just say I'm interested in taking Dr. Costa's course on heresies, and you could audit that course.

You don't have to do any coursework.

You could just come in and listen and learn, ask questions.

And again, just want to leave you with this, folks.

Again, we are in the Christmas season, and the Christmas season reminds us again of the Incarnation, that the Word

became flesh, the eternal Word of God became flesh, and dwelt among us, and that we are celebrating, indeed,

we are celebrating the birth of the King, who is Christ the Lord.

And what majesty that the King of the universe was born in

a feeding trough.

We call it a manger.

A manger is a feeding trough from which animals ate from.

Well, what sublime majesty that the King of the universe was not born in a palace.

He was not adorned with royal raiment, not purple clothing, but he was

placed in a manger and wrapped in swaddling cloths.

That is true majesty, and that is our King, who is also the servant King, who

came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a

ransom for many.

That is the King that one day all the nations will bow to, either willingly or non -willingly,

and one day we will declare that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Amen.

Hallelujah.

Well, I want to thank everybody for listening.

I hope you all have a very blessed and joyful and safe and

Christ -honoring weekend and Lord's Day and a very Merry Christmas.

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives, as you celebrate the birth of

Jesus Christ, that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater

Savior than you.